Some Practical AdviceSo how do we actually pray the Jesus Prayer? Well, it is a prayer of repetition. Not the "vain repetition" of the KJV translation of Matthew 6:7 (which the NIV translates, more accurately, as "keep on babbling like pagans", which is more a criticism of long, wordy prayers than of repetitive ones), but the insistent, longing prayer of the blind men of Matthew 20:30-31, who would not keep quiet, but went on and on calling out to Jesus, "have mercy on us!" (The prayers of Isaiah 6, and Revelation 4:2 and 5:11-14 are prayers of repetition too, but of praise rather than supplication or intercession.)

The Jesus Prayer, as well as being one of the simplest prayers ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" is all it is) is one of the most flexible. It can be extended a bit ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner"), or contracted by leaving out the final "a sinner", or even contracted ultimately to a cry of "Jesus, have mercy!" But its classic form is the most common - "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" - and it's best to stick with the one you're most comfortable with. Plants thrive better if not continually transplanted, as someone once said of this very prayer!

This is a prayer that can be said sitting, kneeling, standing, walking, lying down - any way that seems good to the person praying it. After a time, especially if you get into the habit of praying the Jesus Prayer in odd moments - walking to the bus stop, waiting at traffic lights - you may begin to find that the prayer is saying itself! What I mean is, you will find yourself praying it without conscious intent. You may even wake up to discover you've been praying it in your sleep! This is what the ancient practitioners of the prayer called "the prayer of the heart", and it is when this happens, and especially when you find yourself praying the Jesus Prayer in response to your heart for others, when the pain of the lost, or of the fallen world, moves you to tears, that the true intercessory nature of the prayer becomes clear. As Simon Barrington-Ward says, "After that, the whole prayer becomes an intercession. Soon, I find that I am no longer praying just for myself, but when I say 'have mercy on me, a sinner' I find that all the situations of grief and terror, of pain and suffering, begin to be drawn into me and I into them. I begin to pray as a fragment of this wounded creation longing for its release into fulfilment. The macrocosm of the world and the microcosm of my own heart look curiously similar and become part of each other. I am in those for whom I would pray and they are in me - Every petition of the prayer becomes a bringing of all into the presence and the love of God."

If you look into the literature of the Jesus Prayer, you will encounter from time to time warnings. Some of these are concerned with the use of the Jesus Prayer in connection with various breathing exercises, which were originally designed to make "the prayer of the heart" easier and quicker to develop. I would counsel you to avoid these entirely, unless you have the close companionship of a trusted friend with long experience of using the prayer in a situation of accountability. They were only ever intended as a helping hand, not as an essential part of the prayer.

It is essential, though, to be a member of a living church, and to be accountable in prayer, as in all spiritual matters, to kingdom authority in the person of your pastor. As CS Lewis once said somewhere, there is no such thing as a freelance Christian - we are all members of the Body of Christ, and we will decay and die if we are cut off.

But there is no getting away from the fact that prayer is dangerous because God is dangerous. Exposure to God's love may not be a comfortable experience - we may find ourselves being refined (Psalm 66:10) like silver in its searing glory, and we may find ourselves no longer satisfied with anything but God's eternal depths and mystery! As CS Lewis also said, "Aslan is not a tame Lion!"

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